Thank you Mr. Christoff for giving a "big media" voice to this.
Kill Medicaid?
It's worth considering, said Dick DeVos, the presumed Republican nominee for governor.
Not all of Medicaid, which provides health care to 1.4 million Michigan residents. But DeVos said he likes what Missouri has done.
And what Missouri did was eliminate Medicaid for as many as 100,000 people, about 10% of its caseload, to save an estimated $310 million this fiscal year.
It stopped paying for so-called optional items like feeding tubes, walkers, crutches, prosthetics and physical therapy. It raised health care premiums for low-income families. It cut off Medicaid for disabled people who work part-time.
Unless the Missouri legislature steps in, the state's entire Medicaid program will cease in 2008.
"Let's look at what Matt Blunt, who's the governor of Missouri did ... he said, 'We're simply going to end the program,' " DeVos said on Michigan Public Television's "Off the Record."
Well, besides cost savings, the Missouri plan produced media reports of hardship, like the disabled woman who wound up in a nursing home with body sores from a wheelchair because Medicaid stopped paying for her body braces.
Or the man who lost fingers to amputation, and blamed it on Medicaid cuts. Or a man who killed himself after Medicaid cut off his medication.
Such stories are giving Missouri's governor and lawmakers second thoughts.
I should hope so.
So now comes DeVos -- heir to one of America's biggest family fortunes -- who'd slash health care for poor people to pay for business tax cuts. There's some class war symbolism for you. It must have Granholm's re-election team rubbing its hands with glee and muttering, "Bring it on."
DeVos also said we should scrap the Single Business Tax, without suggesting a way to replace it. The SBT brings the state $1.9 billion in revenue, or 23% of a budget that also pays for universities, prisons, social services and public safety.
DeVos told "Off the Record" the jobs created by eliminating the SBT would outweigh concerns over the state budget.
"Those are consequences we can resolve," he said.
I'll cut. You stitch.
Slashing Medicaid and wiping out one-fourth of the state budget with a tax cut are not timid ideas. Conservatives will give DeVos credit for contemplating big moves for big issues.
They're also big targets.
He might want to invest in some thick armor plating. His campaign is going to need it.
My guess is that he will back off of this, not answer questions, run his smear campaign- and if he gets elected- poor, sick, and elderly people will die from his ideas. Question is: Do people even care? Some of us do. Let's hope that we are the majority.